Hanging out with Benjamin

With the flu and everything else that is going around we are not ready to take Benjamin to church. Today it is my turn to stay home with "Beno" while Maggie and the kids go to church. I decided to take advantage of the time alone to get some pictures of Ben and post them. I found this outfit in the drawer late last night after feeding him and thought it was really cute. I just finished feeding him and wanted to get a picture before he makes a mess of it. We have a hard time getting good picture in our house because the lighting is bad. So I decided to try the backyard on this blanket (courtesy of Aunt Shellie) that matched the theme.

Sweet Benny

Zippidee-do-dah!

Disneyland was awesome this time around. We had two full days to party it up. It was nice not feeling pressured to get every thing done in just one day. We had great company, too! Here's Graham and I finishing up the Mr. Toad ride. I have to say, some of the rides at Disneyland are kinda creepy. Mr. Toad is up there at the top of the creepy list.

We took the kids to Ariel's Grotto, which is a restaurant in California Adventure where you get to have lunch with all the princesses. Here's the kiddos with Ariel.

Here's all the kids with Aurora. Graham was pretty jazzed about the princesses, maybe even more so than Lucy.

He was especially intrigued by Princess Minnie. He watched her for a long time.




I think all the kids look so cute in this one with Cinderella. The lunch experience cost us an arm and a leg and so we probably won't do it again, but the kids had a great time and it was fun watching their reactions to everything.
Here's the fam after riding the Toy Story ride for the 3rd or 4th time. We really liked this one. Although, Lucy did not. She's a little harder to impress than the rest of us.



I love this picture! One of the nights we were there, Jason took Lucy and they went on the Matterhorn and then the teacups. She was pretty scared of the Matterhorn, but has since ridden it a couple more times along with many other big rides I wouldn't expect her to try.


There was a short line to get pictures with the Winnie the Pooh characters. Graham would only do a picture with Tigger and only if Dad was holding him.

What a fabulous trip! We loved our vacation at home with the Grunigs. They are such great friends and we always look forward to spending time with them. For days after they left, Lucy kept saying, "I miss when Peter was here."

Good times with the Grunigs

The Grunigs came to town!! We were so lucky to have them come and stay with us last month. We had a fabulous time and we can't wait for them to come back!We spent a couple days at the beach. The weather was great and the kids had a blast.

We spent much of the second beach day looking for crabs and star fish in the rocks. As you can see in the picture above, Graham was thrilled to be getting his picture taken.

We had dinner one night at Yolanda's. It's a restaurant right on the water. The food is pretty good, but mostly we go for the view and atmosphere.

Peter, Lucy and Abby
Our last picture as a family of just 4

We also went to Ventura Harbor while they were here. There's little shops and a huge marina with hundreds of boats. We stopped for a photo op at these funny murals.
We had to stop for some ice cream, too.

Here's crazy Graham enjoying his cone.

We had such a fun week! It was great watching the kids play and enjoy themselves. Jason took off work and we just played all day. It was like being on vacation, but we got to sleep in our own beds and didn't have to drive anywhere! We're so glad the Grunigs made the trip. We ended the week with two days at Disneyland! More pics to come!

Halloween 2009

We had a great Halloween this year. I have lots of posts I need to do before this one, but I thought it would be fun for the extended fam to see the kids in their costumes. Here's Graham in his Spiderman glory. The mask was a bit snug to begin with, so Dad had to cut the holes bigger and add some length to the straps.
Here's one of our attempts to get all the kids in a picture.

Sweet Benny as an adorable pumpkin. All three of my kids have now worn this costume for their first Halloween. The other two filled it out a little more, being how they were 2 months old when they wore it instead of 2 weeks.
Our beautiful Spanish Princess. Don't you love the model pose? She didn't like that she had to tell people what she was. She wanted them to just know. My favorite Lucy quote of the night was said when we were trick or treating. Her friend's house was out of candy and she said, "Well that's a thummer." She was meaning to say bummer.

Hammin' it up for the camera

We hope you all had a Happy Halloween. Doesn't Benny look like he did?

Benjamin Matthew is Here!

Our little guy made his debut on Friday, Oct. 16. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 11 ounces and is doing great. It's been a little crazy around here, so I took a while getting these posted, but better late then never.

He wasn't scheduled to arrive until Wednesday, the 21st, so we were more than a little surprised when my water broke on Thursday night. I was just making myself comfortable with a big bowl of ice cream and some good television, when I sat down and our adventure began.

We spent the next hour trying to decide if my water did, in fact, brake. I was in denial....big time. This is not what I had planned. There was laundry to do, a van to clean along with many other small things I wanted to get done before Wednesday morning. We called my neighbor and had her come sleep at our house while we went to the hospital.

They didn't have me deliver until the next morning, much to my dismay. So, because I was in a shared room until after the baby was born, there wasn't anywhere for Jason to sleep. So, he made a bed for himself in the van and I tried to get some rest until morning.

The delivery went really well. I was, of course, very nervous until I heard him cry and then I could relax. He was born at 10:16 am on 10/16. Kinda cool. Here we are after getting settled in our own room......finally.

I think this was day 3 at the hospital. With my other kids, I was in no hurry to get home. But this time, I wanted out of there. My Mom couldn't come until Wednesday, so I had friends watching my other kiddos and I was worried about them. It was time to go!

This is the first day home. All tuckered out.

This was the morning before we left, I think. Isn't he cute!

Here's all the Ray kids together. I didn't want the kids to touch him until they were bathed. I'm trying really hard not to be compulsive and crazy about germs.

I think this close-up of Ben is hilarious. He seems disgusted with the world and just wants to be left alone.

What a Nut!

This kid has an extra dose of hilarious lately. He is always pulling the funniest faces when no one is watching. I love listening to him play by himself with his toys. The best is when I hear him laughing at his own little jokes that he makes while he's playing. The last few months, he has taken to talking to random things. If your foot happens to be near his face, he'll say, "Hi, Foot! What you doing?" He gets pretty upset if "Foot" doesn't answer. Tonight I pulled out the vacuum and he wanted to have a little conversation with it. When "Vacuum" explained that he was going to bed, Graham was not happy. He perked up when I pulled out the 409 to wipe down the counters and he could strike up a convo with "Squirter". What a goof!

Just 9 more days and we'll be adding another crazy boy to the mix! YIKES!